Erratic and tried to mischarge us...
Erratic and tried to mischarge us...
I would not recommend WANA for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they did not stick to their own Terms and Conditions regarding payment. In essence, they tried to mischarge us and when we politely pointed out their error, they became angry and walked off the job. So that you can make up your own mind, I’ve included the email exchange between us (found at the end of this review). From our perspective, if someone tries to mischarge us at the first opportunity, then this raises a very big red flag.
We had other problems too. Craig and Jack contradicted each other about building regulations and the legal requirements for our extension etc.
It’s worth noting that WANA’s basic price of around £3,000 does not include a number of services that are necessary to get a project off the ground. For example, you will still need someone to do the basic structural calculations such as a structural engineer (from around £1000-1500) and someone to spec the materials for the job (around £1,000) and another person to do a SAP assessment (£300-500). By the time all these are factored in, WANA do not appear to be wildly cheaper than an architectural practice and certainly not as professional (if our experiences are anything to go by). Does WANA have insurance to cover any mistakes? I don’t know but a professional practice certainly would. All of this means that you might as well pay more for a real architect, or go for one of the numerous online ones that are often cheaper than WANA (such as Arkiplan, resi.co.uk or Hoko). There are also numerous free online architectural drawing packages available. ChatGPT and other AI tools are pretty good too and serve as a brilliant starting point (especially if you’re after a wild card!).
So, overall, I cannot recommend them. And here’s that email exchange that led to them walking off the job and wasting quite a bit of our time. Online architects such as Arkiplan would not have been so stroppy.
Email Exchange over Mischarging
From US
“Dear Jack
I'm a little confused by your invoice. It seems to cover stages one and two of the work (£1320) whereas you have only completed half of stage one (representing £300 worth of work out of a total of £720). I've just had a look at your quote and WANA's terms and conditions. It would seem that when you supply us with the measurements of our house, along with the associated drawings, then stage one will have been completed.
I'm sure this is just an oversight on your part.
Bye for now.
Danny”
From WANA
“We do always invoice to cover the initial draw and the initial design process as this is the stage we will be currently working on. I have attached the payment terms from our information pack below which should cover this. Any questions though, just let me know.
THE PAYMENT
Payments are made in three separate stages (unless otherwise
agreed):
Payment one is due on completion of the measured survey
and will encompass survey and initial design work. (STAGE
1/2).
Payment two will be due when the design has been finalized
and/or is ready to submit to the council. (STAGE 3).
Payment three is due on completion of the building
regulations package. (STAGE 4).
IF at any stage the client decides that they do not wish to continue,
a revised invoice will be prepared and provided with the relevant
uncompleted items removed.
Thanks
Jack”
From US
“Dear Jack,
Section 5.3 of your “Terms and Conditions” states:
“Interim and final invoices shall be for a sum equal to the value of Services carried out less the total of previous applications/invoices or as otherwise agreed within the quotation.”
That’s the contract I agreed to. I would not have agreed to anything else. I don’t see how this tallies with your recent invoice.
Thanks for your help.
Danny”
From WANA
“That is absolutely fine, we have never had an issue with our payment stages with current and previous clients. The relationship between clients and ourselves are very important and the process runs on trust so we will be withdrawing ourselves from the project…
Jack”